ticketec

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WOW patti,

As usual, that looks awesome!!!! She looks pretty big too at 1/5 even though the full sizes is only a little one!

I hear you about the cold and i can't believe how much it has slowed down my building this winter. our house is an ice box in the winter months so not so conducive to building[]

I have bought a test airframe to do some testing and gather some data from the lanc's motors.... and Me-163![X(]

Thanks

dave

Peter_OZ

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Dave, you should have the Komet up and flying by now hehehe

OzyDave

Ok guys, just how cold is it in your shed? Last week it was 5 degrees in mine and -3 outside. Somehow I think you blokes in Brissy and Bundy are not so badly off 

ticketec

My Feedback: (2)

Hey Pete,

Yep, took me two afternoons to get it ready to fly!!

Maiden happened last weekend, and once I got the control throws sorted, it’s one great flying model. I’m almost thinking about getting another one for “just in case�
Will be at the next SCAF event.

Ozedave,

Yep, were soft![X(] I’m from Melbourne and used to laugh at all these sunshine state punters who used to whinge about the cold cos I thought winter here were great!!! We used to go swimming in the winter when we got here cos it was just so nice! But I’ve been here 4 years now… and I feel the cold here as well, now. [:'(]


thanks

dave

jymster

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Wow! It is looking fantastic Richard and Patti, well done guys. I want one! Are you going to make kits available?

James.

Peter_OZ

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yeah but 12 overnight is freezing for us, remember if we have to put long pants on it is cold

OzyDave

Therein lies the reason for us heading to Palm Cove for a holiday in 2 weeks. It maxed out at 12 degrees here today. Ihave to go and find my shorts now. Bye.

Peter_OZ

My Feedback: (1)

hehehe

P4Patti

[quote]Wow! It is looking fantastic Richard and Patti, well done guys. I want one! Are you going to make kits available?

Hi James

Sure you can have one, but you'll have to get in line behind me! My name is at the top of the list

We'd love to see a "flock" of Boomerangs in the skies, it's such a great plane with a true blue Aussie history. And we're finding some interesting nose art as well and the painting of that appeals to me. Check out Zoot! That's the beauty of moulding things, once the works done and the moulds are finished then it's a relatively quick job to turn out another one - not back to the building board, the knife and rib 1!! You can tell I'm not a died in the wool builder can't you?!

But the whole moulding idea has evolved from Richard's 101" "Yellow Rose" B-25. He spent over a year building this beautiful creature and on the maiden flight the nose wheel came off on take off. Back then (in the olden days ) he was using a PCM radio and had interference from the motors and it kept going into lock out. Not being in full control he had to get it down before it did it's own thing and without the nose wheel the results were less than pretty. For the brief time it was in the air it was such an awesome sight and the thrill of flying it had him hooked but the thought of back to rib no.1 was where the thinking began!

Richard wants to have this Boomer in the air by Christmas but as we've seen in the past those deadlines aren't always achieved. We've seriously underestimated the job at hand at times The Nats are on in Dalby, Qld in 2010/11 and since it's only about 5 hours from us that is now a goal. First time the Nats have been in Qld for 10 years so let's support it!

Once the Boomer is flying then it's back to the Lancaster. That was inspired by seeing Steve Thomas' B17 at our warbird weekend last October. Once again an amazing build but all that work for a one off. And now that I've been inspired by the moulding process we have to turn out at least 2!! Although I'll probably need a spare waiting in the wings as well [X(]

And spring is nearly here, we'll all be complaining that the sheds are too hot soon.

Any thoughts on the colours of the Zoot nose are would be appreciated too.

cheers
Patti

Oakey

well it looks to be a crow so a yellow beak and feet and white chest otherwise black hehe. wonder what the can is ?

P4Patti

Hi Again

It seems ages since I posted but we haven't been idle! The detailing of the plug seems to have gone on and on, particularly as it's so difficult to find the reference photos. The Millingimbi Ghost restoration has quite a few discrepencies even to Suzy Q but we're particularly wanting to do the 1940's "U-Beaut 2" and "Zoot" from tropical north Qld and New Guinea era and there are very few photos of those originals, especially close ups. But we reached a stage where it was just time to get on and mould it.

Richard built the tail plane and elevator as he needed to fit that to the fuse so as to mark the hole where it will fit. He also realised that the fin was the wrong shape - much too wide (fat) so out came the saw and he lopped it off! That had to be redrawn then built and refitted to the fuse and blended in. And all those curves!! I'm sure there's not a straight line on the Boomerang!

But, this morning we made the first of the 3 part mould. The basil just had to wait a couple of hours while we laid down 10 layers of cloth! For the parting board we ended up using .5mm PETG (clear plastic) cut into small strips to fit the curves (those curves again!) and supported them with PETG brackets - you can just see them in the photos, a bit hard to see being clear. They're attached with hot glue and it worked really well. That bottom portion was the easiest of the 3 moulds so the other 2 should be done by the end of the weekend then we can actually start laying up a fully detailed flying fuse.

Richard has decided to modify the Robart Mustang undercarriage - it'll need quite substantial modifications but simpler and quicker than starting from scratch. The wings are being drawn up and will be built and sheeted in balsa then panelled with PETG with the rivets machined into them. We've come up with a way of putting "inny" rivets onto panels with the CNC machine which will not only make it so much quicker but they'll have a 3D look. On the full size ones, where the rivet pulls the surfaces together you get a subtle kind of "quilting" effect, a slight depression around the rivet head and that's what the wing panels will have. Is that really sad to be excited about rivets? [sm=confused.gif]

If you happen to see the latest edition of "Classic Wings" mag you'll see the latest Boomerang restoration in flight on the cover. A beautiful sight!

Happy Spring

cheers
Patti

Oakey

guys that looks fantastic!!!!

cant wait to see the finished product

keep at it

C

BOLTMAN

My Feedback: (1)

Hi Patti,

I must get the photos that Brian & I took after the airshow to you. I have been having trouble burning them to a CD ( I am not good with computers[:@] )

I think to get them to Brian I will just take the camera to his place & down load them straight to his computer. This might be an option for you guys also. I would like to come & see where you guys make all this magic happen

I am guessing the first time we will get to have a fly together will be the Bundy warbirds weekend coming up soon. I plan on flying my Hurricane, but will only be there on the Saturday as I must head for BrisVegas Sunday morning for another commitment.

Cheers

Mick

PS. I have made absolutely no progress on my Robart P-47, if anything I am going backwards as I am now tempted to convert it to a Razorback!

P4Patti

Well this Boomerang is now 2/3 moulded! We spent the morning putting 10 layers of cloth onto the port side. It was quite a job and took longer than we thought. We were both kept on the go for about 3 hours cutting cloth, mixing resin and slopping it on making sure there were no air bubbles anywhere as we smoothed it down. It's a VERY sticky business We're thrilled with the results so far and can't wait to get the final part done on Saturday and then be able to pop it out and see the detail.

The PETG parting board is fantastic and SO much easier than making a clunking great MDF solid one to fit exactly.

The pictures tell the story anyway. The elevator is a fully moulded composite trial. Richard has been laying up different combinations to see what works and how much things weigh. We're really tickled with the detail that has come out in the moulding, looks just like the plug!!

Mick, don't go to any trouble with the photos, the detail is done now - for better or for worse. We'll be at the Warbird event on Saturday so will catch up then and hopefully will have the moulded fuse there just to look at. I may even get some paint on it before then!

Once the Boomerang is flying we're so enthused with this moulding process that Richard is going to go full steam ahead with the Lancaster and I'm going to do the P-47 that is already started and hanging up in the shipping container as a plug to be moulded as well. That should be so much simpler than the Boomer as there's an actual plan and the shape is so straight forward. There are about 4 colour schemes that I want to do so this way I can do them all! I'm still very much into the nose art and have found some great P-47 nose art including a Hell's Belles which is the nick name we gave our daughter Helen so that is a must

Also working on the Don Goode pilot figure of the U-Beaut 2. I should have some pics to post soon of that progress too.

til the 3rd part ............

cheers
Patti

P4Patti

One more close up of the elevator and hinge I left out!

BOLTMAN

My Feedback: (1)

Hi Patti,

I am sure there will be plenty of things of interest in the pic's I have, even though you have the fuse moulded. Things such as gear door linkages, flap linkages cockpit etc. I will have to figure out how to burn them to disc as I have deleted them off my camera.

I also have heaps of detail photos of the P-47 that I took in the USA last year, when I figure out how to do it I will put them on a disc for you as well.

I ordered the new canopy & bits to convert my P-47 into a Razorback tonight so I now have more work to do!

Cheers

Mick

Oakey

by the look of it that boomeran is now in adelaide so i will chase it down for you. let me know if there is anything you need photographed!

C

OzyDave

I saw the Temora Boomerang flying yesterday, amongst other great planes. I talk a lot of photos if anyone is interested.

Peter_OZ

My Feedback: (1)

Patti,
bloody good job there!

Be great to see it on the SCAF circuit once completed.
cheers
Peter

P4Patti

Yea, it's coming along goodo now. We got in on Friday night and did the 3rd part of the mould. Bit of an epic effort but we couldn't wait until Saturday! It was the trickiest side with that exhaust .... indent. We embedded a piece of tube into the mould so we can use air pressure to help pop the mould off. We did that on the cowl and it worked amazingly. Sounded like an explosion when it came off It's only on tight fitting pieces that it's needed and just as a precaution. Nothing worse than having the mould all done and not being able to get it off!!!

Richard has trimmed the final piece and bolted it all together and is now working on the internal frame. The project has taken so long and things have changed so much that the drawings on the computer don't match the mould. The cnc machine has been recalibrated in between and the plugs have been filled and sanded so it's not just a matter of spitting the bits out and jigsawing them together unfortunately. This Boomerang, although in theory has been computer generated, is still a hand made piece in a lot of ways. But the lessons and techniques learnt can be applied to the next projects and they should really slot together so much quicker.

I realised I didn't explain the black layer in the moulding process you see in the photos. That is the tooling gel coat which is much harder and longer lasting than normal resin. It's thick and heavy too so just used in mould making to prolong the life of the moulds.

Since we were ahead of ourselves yesterday I finished off a head in Zbrush of the pilot Don Goode and we did a trial cut in plaster. That Zbrush is amazing and I'm barely scratching the surface of what it can do but it was enough to be able to put a moustache onto him. It is a very rough beginning and only cut on a 3 axis from two sides - top and bottom cutting but even with the rough results from yesterday's cutting it's quite exciting as we can see great possibilities. We've just ordered and are waiting for the electronics which will control the 4th axis so we can cut these heads properly. The 4th axis works like a lathe turning the rotary table. Very badly explained I know but when it's set up I'll take a photo and the mud will clear


cheers
Patti

Peter_OZ

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bloody heck that is amazing what you can do with that mill on the pilot bust. Now if you could reate a whole pilot with scale fittings you would sell a zillion!

Brad330l

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Yeah that is great Patti!!!!!
I'll send you my picture and use my head for my pilot.
Always wanted to go back in time and by a famous RAAF boy flying Spits.

Keep up the good work.

Brad

P4Patti

Brad, send your photo and I'll work on modelling your head. It'll take a while to get it cut tho as I mentioned we're waiting on the electronics to run the 4th axis and then it's a small matter of learning how to use the MADcam software but it will happen. I've been playing with Ben Affleck and have a head done which I'll take a screen capture from Zbrush and Rhino and post soon.

If you're sending photos I need front view square on, side profile and preferably even a back view.

Peter, the scale fittings will come as well. Just need to become a bit more proficient with Zbrush but the beauty is once it's drawn it can be scaled to any size.

Patti

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Awesome thread this one, very interesting stuff.

jymster

My Feedback: (9)

Patti,

I am very intrigued by the ZBrush software. I have never seen it before, and as soon as I saw your post I got right on to their website and began watching the many videos there. It seems like an amazing program. I would love to learn how to use it, maybe I can get some tips from you at some stage. Did you start from scratch with the Don Goode bust, or did you use one of the existing models as a base?

I have access to a 3D printer (ZPrint 310), which I am currently starting to learn how to use. I would love to have a go at printing the Don Goode bust for you as a test model, if you can send it to me as an STL file. Let me know.

Regards,

James.